China Doll was first performed by the Grateful Dead in February 1973. The song was performed in total just over a hundred times. There were more than 10 performances in 1973, 1974, 1980 and 1984, most other years had just a handful of performances. China Doll was not performed in 1975, 1976, 1978, 1982 and 1995. The last Grateful Dead performance of the song was in October 1994.

Robert Hunter has said that the original title for China Doll was "The Suicide Song".